


Even in Another Time

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Epistolary, F/F, Secret Samol 2017, spoilers through TM24
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 18:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13172688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: It looks like we’ll be in for a pretty boring ride, Satellite. Maybe that’s for the best. I’m happy to be working with you. I think we can really do some good here.





	Even in Another Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Secret Samol for @mossymushroom on twitter! The prompt was primary/satellite epistolary fic, which, i am extremely gay for epistolary fic, so this was a lot of fun to work on!

Dispatch 1.

Primary Observer here, filing initial report. All mission parameters have been established, pending approval from Crystal Palace and K-Upside. 

We’re here to watch the Mirage now, for better or for worse. I’ve been going over the files, and it really has been on a downward spiral, recently: divine after divine, falling one after the other. But who knows. Things have been stable for a while. It might be a long time before they start to really fall apart.

It looks like we’ll be in for a pretty boring ride, Satellite. Maybe that’s for the best. I’m happy to be working with you. I think we can really do some good here. 

-

Dispatch 22. 

Not much to report, Primary. The team is still making preparations for their deployment to Quire, and not much is happening on the planet itself, from what my scans can tell me. Not yet, at least. So I’ve had a lot of free time. 

I know it’s maybe not the best use of it, but I do have a lot of spare processing power these days. I’ve been reading up on the Divines. There are so many of them, Primary, and there is so much care and detail to their histories. It’s this huge beautiful patchwork. Can you imagine? Three hundred Divines? 

It’s just...it’s also a little strange, is all. I understand what it means to believe in something larger than yourself. Of course I do. I’m a member of the Rapid Evening, after all. But there’s something singular about the way that people in the Mirage feel about their Divines, the way that they react to their deaths. 

The Divines are no longer treated as gods, not the way they once were in the Diaspora, but they’re still treated as--something. Something more. And I don’t know that they’re wrong to do that, really. But what do you do, when something more than just _people_ begins to die off? When their weaknesses become so forcibly apparent? What do you do if you can’t save them?

I guess I just...feel sorry for them. It’s silly, but I do. The collapse of a civilization is never _easy_ , obviously, but--maybe it’s just harder to watch from this perspective than I thought. When you read history in a book or watch it in a vid, that's one thing. But when you _live_ through history, that's something else entirely.

I wanted to thank you, too. For never treating me that way. Like I’m--I don’t know. Something more than human. Even if maybe I am.

I’m sorry. You’re probably not interested in hearing about this. It’s just--it’s a shame, isn’t it? That we can only sit back and watch them die, and hope that maybe they won’t, and pray we won't have to intervene in a more serious way?

I know it’s what I signed up for. K-Upside told me, and my dad did too. But I can’t help but wonder what else we could do. I have a lot of space to wonder, these days. 

-

Dispatch 23.

I don’t think it’s silly, Satellite. That kind of thinking is the reason that you’re here. That _we’re_ here. There’s a reason this process isn’t automated--there’s no algorithm that can decide whether or not I need to push this button. Numbers can tell us so much, but they can’t decide if the situation is salvageable or not. 

Only we can do that. And I do mean both of us--I know what Crystal Palace says. That it’s the Primary Observer who makes the call with input from their Satellite, but Crystal Palace has never been in the field. These kind of choices are never made alone. It’s just not possible.

I don’t think I’ve ever said, Satellite, but I’m glad that it’s you who’s out here with me. Based on my training, I thought it might be boring, sending and receiving these dispatches every day. But it’s not. You never say what I expect you to, Satellite.

I just wish--

Nevermind. Nothing much to report on my end, either. 

-

Dispatch 24.

Yeah, I know what you mean, Primary. 

I know K-Upside does its best to match up agents who will work well together on assignments like this, but--I’m not too proud to admit that I was worried. My dad said I was being ridiculous, and, well. Of course he was right. That instead of all the completely reasonable things for me to worry about, before I agreed to take this job, I was nervous about what my working relationship would be like?

He laughed, and he said it was very like me, and he said that he _personally_ knew the agent that I’d be working with would be up to snuff. Demani Dusk, he said, was a woman with a good head on her shoulders. You know my dad. He’s not usually wrong. Uh, don’t tell him I said that! I know you send reports back to him. Just..tell him I’m doing fine. Don’t let him worry too much. 

As for the rest of my report--all quiet here. I’m finally starting to get used to this capsule, and to--well, to all of it. So much is different. But I have stability in the present, and I think that’s more important than continuity with the past. It has to be. I have my work. I have more information than I’ve ever had before. I have these dispatches, every day like clockwork--your steady voice, carried to me from so far away. 

I can’t see the full picture of it yet. Not even the projections can do that. But this assignment--it’s going to be good for us. I can tell.

*

Dispatch 126.

I’ve been thinking about what you said about connection, Satellite, after Independence. About attachment, and home. I get it, what you said about the Mirage starting to feel like home. I know that when you get right down to it, the Beloved Dust is just a group of agents like any other, but I can’t help but feel...something towards them. Soft, I guess, is the only way I can describe it. Soft in the way we really can’t afford to be. 

And I’ve been thinking about the connections we have with our past. With history. The Rapid Evening is so unbelievably old, Satellite. We’ve seen so much, so many cities and principalities and planets sprouting up from nothing and crumbling back into dust. But--what does any of that really mean? I say _we_ , as if I was there for any of that. And sometimes it feels like I was. But sometimes, it feels as though I couldn’t be further away. 

The sheer scale of the universe--does it ever get to you, Satellite? That we can be here, watching these people whose actions might help decide the fate of the entire fleet, and at the same time I’m looking at the Evening’s archives, trying to remember what I’ve read about the destruction of the Minerva Galaxy, hundreds of lightyears and tens of thousands of years away. 

It’s all just people, put together, multiplied exponentially to make a number so vast I can’t even hold it in my head at once. _You_ might not even be able to hold it in your head at once. History is so big, and we are so very small. No wonder we can’t hope to change anything. The most I can hope for is that I’ll never lose your voice in my ear.

And when I think about my connection to you--

It’s good to have it back, is all.

-

Dispatch 127.

I forgot to say so before, but thank you for the recordings, Primary. Your voice is beautiful. And all these new songs--I can’t really sleep anymore, but I’ve been listening to them during what I think of as my night. It’s become like another sort of routine. 

I keep thinking--what if it happens again? What if we lose the connection? I kept local recordings during the blackout, same as you, but it just wasn’t the same. And your voice on the recording, no matter how beautiful, isn’t quite the same as these dispatches either. But it kind of is. It makes me feel safe in just the same way. And even if this recording can’t tell me anything new--it can’t tell me if you’re okay, it can’t tell me if the mission is on track--it’s still you, Primary. 

What was it I said before? The promise of presence?

Even when it felt like we’d lost everything, you still kept your promise.

-

Dispatch 128.

Gray--sorry. Satellite. You’re welcome. I’m just glad this small indulgence of mine can have some proper use. 

It’s...a nice thought. That I can still be there for you, even when I’m not. When I’m just...in this box, and you’re just in that capsule. I know this connection is real, I know it, but you feel so far away. You _are_ so far away.

I. I hope you don’t mind me saying this. Gray, but you--

I just. Wish I could be there. 

Pause. Begin substitute for past--fuck, what was it--past thirty-six seconds. 

You’re welcome, Satellite. It’s the least I can do. 

Things seem quiet in the Mirage right now, but I worry that it’s like the calm before a storm. I just hope that we’re ready for it. All of us. 

Take care of yourself, Satellite. 

*

Dispatch 168.

I’ve been thinking a lot about one of those people you’ve been keeping track of. Fourteen Fifteen. They’re always changing--new body, new skin, new voice. But it’s still the same person, deep down. But--I’ve been wondering, Primary--are they really the same person at all? To change that often, on such a deep level. To exist only as data. I know that they are the same, really. On that foundational level. But still. It’s a lot, isn’t it?

And they forget. They forget themself, and other people, and entire relationships. 

I guess I’m just scared. I’m young, for a Satellite Observer, you know? I have so much time ahead of me. I don’t know who I’m going to be. Am I different from the person I was, back at Crystal Palace? Dreaming of this assignment? Dreaming of a Primary whose voice I didn’t yet know, who I couldn’t even begin to imagine? How much am I going to change? Will I look back on these recordings, someday--in ten years or a hundred or a thousand--and laugh, or cry, or even worse--feel nothing at all, for the person I am now?

You’re so steady, Demani. I love that about you. I just wish I could be that for you, too.

-

Dispatch 169.

Gray, I love you. Whoever you are, and whoever you become. Everything is hanging on a precipice, this close to falling apart, but that’s the one thing I am sure of. I will always, always love you.

I’ve been reading that book of poetry you sent me. I think the most beautiful thing about it is the pieces that are missing. The million small words that have been forgotten, leaving only fragments in their wake. It should be sad, but--isn’t it amazing that we still have these poems at all? Because an endlessly long line of people loved these words, and wanted to save them. These words reached out, over a hundred thousand years after their author’s death, and they found us. Battle-scarred and missing pieces, but they made it. 

And the people who loved these poems, they couldn’t save everything. But that even a single word, a single line, a single half-remembered poem survived--doesn’t that make it all worth it?

Isn’t that what we should be doing? All this observation--if we can’t _save_ anything--

It’s exactly the kind of arrogant thinking that’s destroyed so many civilizations. I know that, and I know you do too. But I can’t help it, Gray. I didn’t realize it before I met you. But there’s so much beauty in this place. Thank you for helping me see it.

-

Dispatch 173.

You got the same transmission I did, right, Demani? So you’ve heard the news about the Cadent. About Open Metal and--what are they calling themselves? Sui Juris? As if the Mirage wasn’t already going through enough upheaval right now.

The fate of the Cadent isn’t really relevant to us. At least, I don’t think it is. I’m still running calculations. I’ll let you know if I find anything. But there are only so many projections I can run, and I’ve been looking into something else, when I have time. It’s helping to keep me focused. Looking into individuals, the specifics of their lives, those mundane details: those things help, when everything else is too...fuzzy. 

And even now, I can’t help but be curious. I’ve been looking into Open Metal and Tender Sky. They used to be everything to each other, you know--partners in every sense of the word, in the very soul of it. And they were almost more than that. Open Metal wanted them to be. 

It’s strange. I couldn’t understand it. The files don’t tell the whole story. So I found what I could--the By-and-By keeps pretty good records, though they’ve got nothing on The Sky Reflected in Mirrors--and there was enough. Concert tickets. Receipts from nice dinners they’d had. An old build for a room Tender made for them in the Mesh, a place where they could be alone, where they could pretend, for just a little while, like the rest of the world didn’t exist.

A piece of a security camera feed, saved from the loop that should have written over it. I don’t know which of them did it. It’s not a long clip. Just them walking together on the By-and-By, hand in hand, but Demani, if you could see the way they were looking at each other--they were so in love. They thought they had all the time in the world. Neither of them ever dreamed that it would all fall apart. 

But it all spiraled so fast, out of control the same way things are now in the Mirage, events happening and deteriorating so quickly that it’s hard to tell what’s a catalyst and what’s a reaction. Open Metal asked Tender Sky a question, one night, and she didn’t get the answer she wanted. And now they hate each other. When they’re in the same room it’s like a baring of teeth.

I worry, Primary, about the questions I might have to ask you, someday. Or what you might have to ask me. I know it’s not the same. I know we’re not them. But are we really so different? The way you looked at me, in that sliver of time we carved out for ourselves, the space that was just for us. It wasn’t so different from the way Open used to look at Tender. And in some ways they’re just people on a screen to me--I doubt I’ll ever meet them--but they’re real. All of this really happened. How do I know that I won’t someday think of you the way that Tender thinks of Open, with a terrible ache in her chest? As the worst kind of personal history?

Maybe I’ve just been thinking too much. Open Metal’s message really got to me. I only got the transmission from a relay, but it was still--there. _Inside_ me. Where my heart would be, if I still had one, in the traditional sense.

It wasn’t as bad as Independence. But I guess it still made me feel just as lonely. 

-

Dispatch 174.

I don’t know what to tell you, Gray. It would be an understatement to say that I’m at a loss, honestly, in almost every sense. But Open Metal and Tender Sky--they’re not ordinary people. They’re legends, both for very different reasons, but no matter what happens now, there will be books written about them. Pages and pages combing through all the minutiae of their lives. Academics will argue about them. Bored students will skim over hundreds of years of history in the blink of an eye, barely pausing over their names. Someone will lend her friend Tender’s biography, insisting that she read it with care.

I think maybe you can’t become a myth like that without a lot of grief. We don’t have to. We’re just--two people doing a job. The oldest story there is--two people who met each other, and then against all odds realized that they couldn’t bear to be apart. That’s our history.

We’re two people who have a choice to make, and who have to make it together. That’s like Open and Tender, too, but you know what, Gray--we are not like them. Their problem was they couldn’t really connect, not when it mattered. We’ve never had trouble with that.

I’ve been thinking, too.

Pause. Authorize allotment of personal communication time. Voice signature Demani Dusk. Signal route: Gray. Begin recording.

Gray. This has been a long time coming. I don’t think I can do it anymore. You know what I mean. We are a loaded gun, but guns don’t do the things that we do. They don’t feel the things that we do. A gun doesn't know what's going to happen after the trigger is pulled. A gun doesn't worry about who'll be caught in the crossfire. It goes against every bit of my training, but when I think about pushing that button, the only thing I can see is you, in the moment after the bomb goes off.

I can't do it.

And a gun can’t abandon its post, either. But I think you’re right. That I have to. _We_ have to. 

I can’t believe I’m saying this. Tell me I’m being ridiculous. Talk me out of this, Gray. Tell me there’s another option, something I’m not seeing. You can always see the things that I can’t.

Whatever we do, we do together. No matter what, you must know that, Gray--I’m not going to leave you behind.

-

You’re right. Demani, I think this is the only option we have. 

It’s all a mess. The Mirage is twisting in ways that even I can’t understand, and yet every second, part of my processing power is thinking of you, worrying, imagining all the ways you could be hurt--

K-Upside _really_ isn’t going to be happy with us after this. But what the hell. Someday some other Primary, some other Satellite, they _will_ remember us. Just...maybe not for the reasons I used to think. 

We can help them, can’t we? I think we can. I think we have to.

Just tell me the plan, Demani. I’m with you. I’m here.

*

How are you holding up, Gray? I know this transition might have been...a little more sudden for you than it has been for me.

I figure--we might as well keep these up, right? On an informal basis. I guess all our conversations won’t be clogging up the Rapid Evening’s records, anymore. K-Upside had a word with me about that, you know. I don’t know if I ever mentioned it.

I made contact with Cascara and her team. It was strange, seeing everyone in person after keeping track of them from afar for so long. I know so much about them, and they know nothing about me. That’s how the Evening has always liked it. We know everything, and make the decisions that others cannot make for themselves.

I believed in that for all of my life. But we were wrong.

I say we, as if the Rapid Evening will ever take me back after this. It seems almost presumptuous to even think about what I’ll do...afterwards. So many things could still go wrong. But no matter what, Gray--I’ve realized that I haven’t done a single thing that I regret. I waited for as long as I had to wait, and I met you, and I fell in love, and now we’re here, at what might be the end of everything, and even if this is how we die, even if we’re forgotten in the end--it was all worth it. It could all be scattered to the winds, every record the Evening has of us could be destroyed, the Mirage could become nothing but dust, and it would have all been worth it. I know it.

And I’ll make damn sure that I come and see you again, before the end. There is so much at stake, Gray, but it all fades away in the face of the chance to hold your hand just one more time.

-

I’m looking forward to it, Demani.

I’m not too worried. The projections--the projections don’t lie, but there is only so much of the truth they can see.

They didn’t see _us_. They’re just not built that way. 

I believe we can make a difference. I believe that we _will_. And I’ll get to see you smile again, the way you did when you first saw me. Not like a sunrise. Like a satellite, finally returning to orbit, the place where it’s meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, the book of poetry is Sappho and listen, if Hegel apparently survived until TM era you bet Sappho did too!!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Even in Another Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17437721) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery), [ZoeBug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug)




End file.
